“It is rare I see so many students in this class.” The Lord Doctor turned his eyes to Maddi, softening them and offering her the hint of a smile. “With our surprise addition this semester, you are the largest class I have ever taught to embrace their Talent.” He scanned the crowd with his gaze. “You all have the potential, or I would not waste my time with you. Some of you will choose to join the Bluecloaks – the army always has need of healers for some reason.” A soft chuckle emanated from the students. “A few of you may choose to teach here.” He narrowed his eyes. “Very few.”
Another soft laugh circled the classroom. Maddi even offered a slight grin, until a faint sound tickled her ears. Was that a child’s cough?
The Lord Doctor folded his hands behind his back to continue. “Most of you know the basics of our current subject. Otherwise you would not be here. You have either been told by another Doctor or sensed it for yourself.” Marten turned his head toward a shy young woman slumped in her seat near the rear of the room. “Some of you even found a way to tap into your Talent already – warped though you have made it.” The woman sunk further into her seat.
“You know about the life force,” the doctor continued, “what the elves call the psahn. Healing Talent is far more common among the elves than humans, though less so among the dwarves.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know nor care what the rate is among orcs.”
One boy near the front guffawed, receiving glares from some of the students.
After a short smile at the young man, as if proud of making him laugh so, Marten resumed his pacing. “Regardless, the psahn is the power that drives all life. It is in all living things – even the microbes that cause the diseases we cure.” He waved his finger at the class. “When you learn to use the mind’s eye of a healer and enter into your Talent, you will see the psahn as a glowing light, radiating from the life forms around you. The more complex the life, the more brilliant the glow.”
A hand shot up from the boy who had laughed.
The doctor sighed. “Yes, Mister Darby?”
The young man shifted forward on his seat. “How soon will we learn to use it?”
The Lord Doctor barked a sharp chuckle. “Well, Mister Darby, if you are so enthusiastic, lets get right to it.” He walked to a small door leading to a back room and opened it. “Come on out, little girl.”
A wiry ball of stringy hair and rags stepped into the classroom. Her eyes widened in fear at seeing the assembled students, then closed as she lifted her hand to cover a hacking cough. Coming from deep within her chest, it wracked her tiny frame. Maddi started from her seat, her hand reaching out. She stopped herself when the Lord Doctor led the girl forward.
“We will try disease first. Wounds next.” He pushed the girl forward, his fingertips pressuring her shoulders. “Mister Darby, you begin.”
The young man hopped up from his seat and strode forward to face the Lord Doctor. Darby looked down on the little urchin, who wiped her nose in response. He grimaced, his face wrinkling in disgust.
“Shut your eyes, and put your hands on her shoulders.” The Lord Doctor closed his own eyelids. “You will think of the girl, see her in your mind – see the glow of her psahn. Enter it with your mind. See the blackness of her sickness.”
Darby’s face lit up. “I see it!”
The Lord Doctor sighed. “No you don’t. You may sit down, Mister Darby. I see that you need more time and concentration.” Marten nodded to the disappointed student. “Read Lord Doctor Brathlaw’s book on meditation. Use the techniques there to hone your mind and concentration.”
Flopping down in his seat, Darby glared at the little girl.
As if it were her fault!
The poor girl hacked again, this time almost falling to her knees. Maddi half-stood. “Aren’t you going to help her? She obviously needs camphor and menthum, with a good bath and bed rest in clean sheets. She needs warm stew three or four times every day, and whatever citrus juice you can get your hands on in this city. Lemon-grass and honey could help as well.”
A small smile crept on Marten’s lips. “Then why don’t you help her yourself, Miss Conaleon? But not with your midwife’s remedies, useful as they may be on the frontier.” He gestured toward the girl. “Use your Talent.”
Maddi crossed the room, aware of the other student’s eyes upon her. She knelt in front of the girl, her face smoothing to a smile. “What is your name, sweetie?”
The girl sniffed. “Tanya.”
“My name is Maddi.” She looks about the same age I was when father died. I imagine I looked just like her until Renna took me in.
Maddi placed her hands on the child’s shoulders, and the doctor placed his hands on hers. His finely manicured nails held not a speck of dirt, and his skin felt warm and soft.
“Close your eyes,” Marten whispered. “Find her psahn.”
In the darkness behind shut eyelids, Maddi imagined Tanya standing in front of her. Her hands upon the girl’s shoulders anchored Maddi, giving her mind a seed from which to grow.
“Breathe.” The Lord Doctor’s voice came to her – distant – as if he called through a fog. “Open your mind. Open your Talent.”
Maddi perceived a glowing shimmer gathering in the black. It swelled, shaping itself into the outline of a little girl. When Tanya coughed, Maddi barely heard it. Instead, she felt a lurch within the radiance of the girl’s life force. More silvery shapes bloomed into her perception – the students surrounding them. The doctor’s life force burst in front of her, becoming a brilliant glare once it fully resolved.
“Focus on the girl.” His words floated on the edge of her consciousness. “Find the shadow of the disease that dwells within her. Find it and draw it out.” He paused. “Take care to keep your own psahn clean.”
Shifting her mind back to the girl’s life force, Maddi concentrated on the shining form. Black specks flowed along within eddies of silver energy. They impeded it, dimming its brilliance.
Maddi reached into the light with her mind. A warm sensation flooded her cheeks and chest. She swept the specks of shadow together, like gathering corks upon a pool’s surface. Pulling them in, she continued searching Tanya’s life force. Drawing the disease inward, she held it away from her own sense of self.
The last of the impurities disappeared from the girl’s energy. Maddi withdrew from her Talent and opened her eyes.
Tanya’s color had brightened, a pink glow in the cheeks where once gray had reigned. She cleared her throat, but did not cough.
“By the Waters!” Marten covered his mouth with one hand. “I have never seen someone cure disease upon their first try.” His voice hung low and breathless. “You are…ahem…you did well, Miss Conaleon.”
When Maddi moved to rise, exhaustion rippled her muscles. She remained on her feet, however, standing without a wobble.
“You will want to sit and rest.” The Lord Doctor put his hand underneath her elbow and escorted her to her chair. He only let go her arm once she looked him in the eye and nodded.
After a few deep breaths, her senses cleared. She pulled a strand of loose hair back behind her ear.
“Careful.” Marten grabbed her wrist with a soft and steady grip.
A black, tar-like substance smudged the palm of her hand. The doctor reached over to a side table and set a large glass beaker of clear liquid on her desk. It smelled of the strongest liquor Maddi had ever sipped.
“Place your hand within, please. It is just a distilled spirit.”
Maddi dipped her fist into the beaker, the cold shock waking her mind even further. “It will kill the disease,” she said. “My foster mother also taught me to use strong spirits when cleaning wounds.”
Marten nodded, a half smile creeping onto his lips. “You are correct.” He scanned the gathered students. “This does not mean that drinking the spirits will do the same thing.” More ch
uckles rose from the students. The doctor handed Maddi a towel. “I will have my eyes on you.”
He walked over to the little girl, who had begun toying with a small metal contraption on the doctor’s desk. “Here you go, young miss.” He handed her a silver penny, the sight of which cause Tanya to gasp in excitement. “Go on back home now.” He ushered her to the hall door, scooting her out and closing it behind her.
Maddi frowned, eyes narrowing at the doctor. “Shouldn’t someone see her to her home?”
Marten knitted his brow, as if surprised by her question. “She is an urchin of the street. She knows her way about the city, I assure you.” He huffed. “Probably better than either of us do.”
The Lord Doctor waved his hand in dismissal and opened another side door. A large guardsman in the white and gray livery of the city watch entered the room. The man winced when the doctor unwrapped a folded bandage soaked with the guard’s blood and exposed a nasty slash on the man’s arm.
“Private Digson kindly agreed to let his wound sit open so that I might test another one of you. Who wants to try to repair this?”
Thoughts racing through her mind, Maddi sat in the chair, distantly observing several students fail to heal the guard. After six unsuccessful tries, the color of the guard’s face began to shift past gray into ash. A small pool of blood gathered among the river rushes scattered on the stone floor. The doctor laughed at his students, closed his eyes, and touched the arm of the man. In seconds, the wound knitted closed, leaving only a small pink scar underneath the blood that had already leaked from the gash.
Those events hopped along the surface of Maddi’s awareness. Her mind focused on what she had done, the potential she felt when embracing her Talent. She longed to do it again.
What does this mean for my other career?
When the yard bell rang to mark the hour, she rose, still numb, and shuffled out the door along with the other students. Her mind still tried to wrap itself around her power.
“Miss Conaleon, if you would stay a moment…”
Maddi took two more steps before the Lord Doctor’s words registered in her head. She turned and walked back to him. His pale honey eyes narrowed in an examining stare.
“I have something for you.” He held up his hand, a small key dangling from his fingers on a leather thong. “All new students, no matter how high their references, are required to live in the dormitory. You are assigned to room twenty-seven.”
Maddi took the key from his hands. She stared at it.
“You are welcome, Miss Conaleon.” The doctor chuckled, turning his chair back to his desk and focusing on the papers there. “See you tomorrow.”
She wandered into the hall. Just how powerful is this Talent?
Leaning against the door marked “27”, Maddi heard the sound of soft crying. She stood, listening until the sobs faded away. When no more sniffles drifted through the thick oak, Maddi turned the key and pushed her way inside.
Two narrow beds hugged the walls with the space of another between. Through a single window, draped in plain cotton, Maddi glimpsed the grassy space between college buildings. Curled up with a knitted blanket, the pretty, kind-faced student from Maddi’s class sat on the left hand bed. The one Marten accused of warping her Talent. The young woman wiped a tear from under her eye, and offered a friendly smile.
“Hi…”
Maddi knelt down beside the woman. “Are you alright?”
The student nodded, dabbing her eyes again with a kerchief. “Yes. I’m sorry to meet you this way. The Lord Doctor can be…harsh.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Amilia Magrone…Ami to my friends.” Her smile broadened. “I hope we can be friends.”
After shaking Ami’s hand, Maddi sat down upon the bed next to her. “I’m Maddi, and I’d love to have a good friend. They are hard to find in this place.” She tilted her head. “What did Doctor Marten mean when he called your Talent warped?”
Ami wrapped her blanket more tightly. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
Patting the woman’s knee with her free hand, Maddi leaned in closer. “I want to be your friend. Tell me what’s wrong, and I will help if I can.” She grinned with mischief. “After all, if that arrogant bastard can’t bring us together, who can?”
Ami chuckled. “Fair enough.” A calm look crossed the woman’s thin features. “My parents both work at Belcester Palace in Wellsfield. My mother is a housemaid, while my father works in the stables.” A slow smile split her narrow lips, one that grew with each line of her tale. “As a child, my mother taught me to clean the rooms of the palace and to help her with the laundry. I hated it. Every time I could, I slipped away to see my father in the stables. I loved the horses.” She laughed. “And the goats, and the dogs, and the cats…”
The young woman’s eyes glittered, and Maddi could not help but grin with excitement.
“So one day – oh, I don’t know, about three years ago – my mother and I were arguing about the wash. I threw the duke’s undies into the basin and ran off.” Ami folded her hands in her lap and stared up at the oak raftered ceiling. “I found the stable, searching for my father. He always consoled me and let me stay with the animals for a while. Then he would convince me to return to my mother and the duties of a maid.” She looked down at her hands. “This time, however, there was a mare in foal. She screamed in pain. It was the most terrible sound I had ever heard.”
Ami rubbed her hands. Maddi could almost see the memories playing through the woman’s mind.
“I knelt down beside my father,” she continued. “I can still remember the grave look on his face. When I…when I touched the mare’s neck, her wild eyes settled and…and she lay there calmer, breathing hard.” Ami looked up from her hands, her gaze boring into Maddi. “I closed my eyes and I reached out to her life force…her psahn as Doctor Marten calls it. I felt the baby inside her, separate yet connected by the fragile umbilical cord. The foal’s life force flickered. I…I reached inside her with my mind – just as you did with the girl today – and I eased the baby out. I steadied the flow of its life force, and then healed the wounds inside the mother.”
Maddi gasped, reaching out again with her hands to cup Ami’s. “You opened your Talent without the help of another doctor?”
Ami nodded, her lips wrinkled in both fear and joy. “I saved the horse and its foal, but I scared my father. When he realized what had happened, he took me to the closest doctor, who recommended I come to the college.” She rolled her eyes back, counting in her head. “I’ve been here over two years now.”
“But what is warped about that?”
Shrugging, Ami shook her head. “I can only heal animals, not humans. I’ve even tried elves and dwarves. No good.” She grinned. “Really, I don’t see a problem with it. Animals deserve healing as much as people.”
“More than most,” Maddi agreed. She looked at Ami with a bright smile. “I think we will definitely be friends.”
Doctor Witesell droned on, his voice a slow monotone that coaxed Maddi into drowsiness.
“The Red Death came to the Hadonese Empire through an unknown conduit. The contagion swept the empire. Thousands upon thousands died. Most of the deaths occurred north of the Hadonese Range, in the cities and towns surrounding Avaros and Lake Iyar. By the time Aravath the Navigator led the People of Gan in the Return, those entire regions of Tarmor were virtually unpopulated, the Red Death having mostly stayed north of the mountains. In fact, the Hadonese Empire was so decimated by the plague that the People of Gan quickly settled Avaros and Iyar, claiming them for the kingdom of Gannon.”
Epidemic History is boring. What does the history of a disease have to do with curing it? She stared out of the window, watching the sunlight filter through leaves already shifting to autumn brown. The grass on the open quad still held its deep green hue, beckoning her to lay down on it and nap until the warm sun le
ft Daynon wrapped in a late summer evening.
The tolling of the yard bell awakened Maddi from her thoughts and tore the sleepiness from her mind.
“Very well, class. Read Aberson’s History of Gout for next week.” Doctor Witesell raised a finger, thin with age. “There will be a test.”
The students shuffled out of the room, whispering quiet plans to one another. With no class tomorrow, many suggested going out into the city. Maybe Ami will want to go too.
The fresh air and late summer sun brought a smile to Maddi’s face. She skipped down the brick steps and headed toward the dormitory.
A bundle of dirty clothes and spiky hair tackled her as she rounded the corner of Prince’s Hall. A pair of sinewy white arms, streaked with mud, wrapped around Maddi’s waist. She took a step back under the sudden onslaught.
“What the—”
A wail escaped the attacker. “Please…can you help my mommy the way you helped me?” A pair of pale green eyes looked up at Maddi from behind stringy hair that appeared red under all the dirt. “I’ve been looking for you so long.” Tears left gray streaks down the little girl’s cheeks.
“Tanya?” Maddi patted her hair. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Miss Maddi.” The girl let go. Stepping back, she twisted her toe into the ground and stared at the grass. “My – my mother is sick, just like I was. You cured me.” Her gaze strayed toward Maddi’s face. “You could cure her too.”
Maddi stood there, watching the little girl’s lower lip tremble. She had no desire to follow her into the slums, and she let it show upon her face. Tanya stood her ground. Not a whimper escaped her throat.
The girl has a heart full of bravery, just like I did. If only someone had been there to save my father...
A Balance Broken (Dragonsoul Saga) Page 28